


Fly

by Sandyclaws68



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Freeform, Gen, Memories, Pre-Series, inner monologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 12:41:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6154057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandyclaws68/pseuds/Sandyclaws68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hinata has always had dreams, but a very particular set of circumstances will allow them to take flight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fly

My mother told me once that keeping one's feet firmly on the ground was the key to a happy life. Dreamers, she said, inevitably crashed back to Earth, often with painful results. Not always painful for them; one problem (of many) with dreamers was that they almost never recognized the damage that they could inflict. But for their friends and families – the people who care for them – pain could not be avoided.

I don't remember how old I was the first time we had that conversation; six or seven, maybe. Although in thinking about it I know my sister had already been born, so I was probably closer to eight. The subject didn't come up again until two years later. That was also one of the rare times that my mother said anything directly against my father; normally she would keep her unhappiness and disgust hidden, but occasionally it would burst free. She would rant about how irresponsible he was, unwilling to actually settle down into a life and a job, unwilling to be tied down to her and their children.

_He's the worst sort of dreamer_ , she said that day. _Don't be a dreamer, Shouyou-kun. Stay planted on the ground and keep your head out of the clouds._

Just over a year after that all of the dreams I ever had took flight.

I didn't tell my mother what I had seen at the electronics shop that day, beyond mentioning that it had been a volleyball match. She asked me if I was interested in the sport and when I said yes she got me into a local club for elementary school students. The first thing I noticed when I started was that even though I was a sixth year student I was one of the shortest kids in the club. I was even shorter than a couple of fourth year students, who laughed at me every time I moved forward to block or spike.

The second thing I noticed was that besides being able to run fast and jump high I had absolutely no athletic ability. Or coordination. I would trip over my own feet. The first time I tried to dive after a ball I cracked my head on the floor and spent the night in the hospital. I got my arm tangled in the net after a successful spike and brought the whole thing – net, poles, and antennas - crashing down.

I quit after that. I didn't completely give up, but I realized that I needed to focus on improving my overall fitness – strength, stamina, flexibility, and agility – before I could even think about any sort of organized, team sport. We had a neighbor at the time, Hodeki Nori, who had been a star basketball player in high school and in various clubs while at university. When I first approached him with questions he took on the task of helping me without a thought.

_You want to be a Tiny Giant, don't you?_ , he asked me after I had been training with him for two months.

I didn't deny it.

I was the only member of my middle school's boys volleyball club, so I had to work with what I could. I practiced skills by myself; in hallways, in corners of the gymnasium, even outside if I had to. My best friend was a basketball player, and after almost constant pestering he agreed to help me whenever he could. Some basketball skills were readily adaptable to volleyball, so it helped. But I knew it wasn't enough. At the start of every academic year I would try to get more boys interested in volleyball, but without much success.

But in my third year three first years wanted to play, so between the four of us we became an official club. More than anything I wanted to participate in an upcoming tournament, even though we really weren't skilled enough for that. I got two of my friends to join us to make the requisite six players, and the school agreed to send us to compete. That was the happiest I could remember being since the day that a volleyball match and a television had changed my life.

Until we came up against Kitagawa First Middle School and _him_.

I'm not going to lie; that match – my first and only one in middle school – was ugly. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. But I didn't hesitate to throw myself into the experience. And even after the pain of the loss I didn't let it go. I confronted him outside afterward and promised that I'd get better and one day I'd be good enough to take him on and beat him.

I found out later that his name was Kageyama Tobio, and even later what had happened in that tournament. How his teammates had turned their backs on him, fed up with his arrogant attitude and refusal to cooperate with them as a team. He had been benched by their coach because of the friction on the team and they ended up losing that final match and the tournament.

All that knowledge came later. Before that came almost a year of doing whatever I could to get better, even playing with the girls team at school and practicing with a local women's association team. I didn't become tremendously better through those efforts, but I did learn a lot more about my weaknesses as a player. I was still somewhat at a loss as to how to go about correcting them, but at least I knew what they were.

In between all of the practicing and training I managed to squeeze in time to study for my high school entrance exams. I've never been that great of a student; too impatient to take the time to do things right, I guess. But I knew that I couldn't afford to flub those exams. Every dream I had was dependent on that. And when I passed, and it was time to choose a high school, I didn't hesitate. The name was burned into my brain from that day in front of the electronics store.

Karasuno.

And imagine my shock and surprise when one of the first people I encountered as part of the boys volleyball club was him. I suppose for a while I had managed to more-or-less forget his existence, being too busy with other things. Confronted with his presence right in front of me it was pretty hard to ignore, though. But what caused my stomach to churn in the worst way was the idea that from that point forward I needed to consider him my teammate. My mind and heart rebelled against that; how was I supposed to beat him if we were on the same team?

Apparently he didn't like the idea any more than I did, if the words that came out of his mouth meant anything. I don't think he missed a single nasty descriptor in his tirade against me. Karasuno's captain wasn't having any of it, though. He threw us out of the gym and said we were out until we figured out how to be teammates.

Easier said than done. It took what some might consider a suicidal challenge – that the pair of us would play the upperclassmen two-on-two for the right to be in the club – to light even the smallest spark. The captain, Daichi-san, accepted the challenge with a few modifications: it would be us against the two other freshmen applicants with an upperclassmen on each team. And we had a little less than a week to prepare.

With Tanaka-senpai, who had been assigned to play with us, we worked out in the mornings before regular club practice. At five o'clock in the morning to be precise. After school the two of us practiced outside until the sun went down. We worked mainly on my receiving, because that was my greatest weakness. Another of the third years, Sugawara-san, helped me during the lunch break each day, and I'll never forget one thing he said to me, because it changed my entire outlook.

_If he was your most powerful opponent before, now he's your most powerful ally._

That three-on-three match is kind of a blur in my memory. I remember another first year being an obnoxious jerk the entire time, constantly taunting Kageyama to get a rise out of him. I remember learning about why his middle school teammates had called Kageyama the King of the Court. It wasn't flattering, to say the least. I also remember my first experience with what came to be our signature quick attack. And of course I remember winning.

I went home that evening exhausted, but with a new sense of purpose. I didn't know if Kageyama and I could ever be friends, but I knew that we had become partners.

And with him at my side I would truly be able to fly.


End file.
